Did you know that Tonya Cherry of radio station GX94 has successfully raised $27,000 for charity through cookbook sales? If your company or organization is looking for ways to raise money for a good cause, why not consider doing a cookbook on an annual basis, as Tonya has? We are pleased to feature GX94’s upcoming fundraising cookbook and some enthusiastic comments:

“I can’t wait! Thank you as always for making the process so easy and the finished product beautiful!” – Tonya Cherry, GX94

We are committed to helping organizations and groups raise funds for their various projects and causes. We will continue to provide the highest quality product that is competitively priced and produced with the utmost care and concern.

Please feel free to contact us, should you have any questions about a cookbook project that is currently in production or if you’d like more information about getting one started!

Have you ever had one of those days when nothing seems to work out right, when every time you try to solve a problem another one presents itself? For Marla Avery, it wasn’t a day or two. It was months. Marla’s journey began in July 2008 when she was diagnosed with melanoma cancer. Shortly afterward her left eye was removed, standard procedure where tumors reach a certain size, which was the case with Avery.

Later that year, in October, Avery received an eye transplant, which presented hope for the future, but it was shortly after that, with her daughter only seven weeks old, that she received more bad news. Avery’s Ocular Melanoma had metastasized to her liver. “I honestly believe God takes you down that road to be closer to him,” explained Avery from her home in Denton, Texas. For Avery, it was definitely her faith that got her through the experience. “I’m a two time cancer survivor. We treated the liver and now I’m grateful for every day. I chose to take this experience and make something positive happen, so I created a fundraising cookbook to raise awareness and raise funds for helping people.”

Avery was a little intimidated by the prospect of making her own cookbook, having never produced one before, but explains that Gateway quickly put her at ease. “They were fantastic to deal with. They brought me right through the process and their online entry system made the process so easy. In fact, the system enabled me to have survivors enter recipes from all over the States. One came in from Michigan.”

The cookbook, called Eye, Eye, Eye Dat’s Good!, is full of recipes for tasty southern dishes, and touching stories about both tragedy and survival. Funds raised through the sale of the cookbook are being directed to AIM at Melanoma, a Plano, Texas based non-profit. AIM is the largest international melanoma organization focused on melanoma research, education, awareness, and legislation. AIM is the result of a merger between two foundations, each originally formed in memory of a person taken by this horrific disease (Charlie Guild and Jim Schlipmann).

According to Avery, sales are going well. Her boundless energy and enthusiasm are certainly contributors to its success. “I emailed and Facebooked. We’re doing a 5 k run. We’ll sell some cookbooks there. I just put in another order. I really didn’t realize how easy this would be.”

The Campbellford Seymour Agricultural Society has a very straightforward mandate – to bring the community together through agriculture. Established in 1854, the Society is a volunteer based organization with two objectives that drive this mission forward:

To promote agriculture in the community by holding an annual fair

To encourage activities intended to enrich rural life

The annual fair is really the primary focus of Campbellford’s 18-member Board of Directors and its countless volunteers. “We meet once a month, and during our AGM every year in January,” explains Society President and Board member Angela Runciman. “Our focus is really the fair. It’s a big event and a lot of work.”

The Campbellford Fair is a unique event with a diverse range of activities. The Fair features a Midway, Livestock Shows, a Homecraft Show, a Novelty Contest, Demonstrations, a Children’s Activity Centre, the 4X4 Challenge, a Demo Derby, Live Entertainment, and Concessions. According to the Peterborough Examiner, there’s something for everyone, “There were lots of rides for all ages at the Campbellford-Seymour Agricultural Fair midway, including the Cobra, the Tilt-a-Whirl, and that perennial favourite at fairs, the fun house, while thrilling horsemanship at Friday’s Western Gymkhana show drew a good sized crowd with events including barrel races, pole bending, flag races, keyhole races, and a Dash 4 Cash.”

To finance an event of this size, mini-fundraising events are held throughout the year including:

The Annual Chicken BBQ – held the last Sunday of May

The Food Booth – held at the local sale barn – first Tuesday in August

In keeping with the Society’s inclusive approach to management, the Board gathered recipes for the cookbook from every part of the community, a task that could have been daunting if it weren’t for Gateway’s online recipe entry system. “Our goal was to gather 100 recipes. We ended up with more than 300. Most were handwritten. I was able to enter each of them right into my computer, which made the exercise totally manageable. Most cookbook publishers don’t have an online entry system. Creating a cookbook with Gateway was a breeze.”

It was a pleasure to attend this year’s Association of Fundraising Professionals 2012 Vancouver 49th International Conference on Fundraising. Their slogan was “Drive Passion, Drive Fundraising & Drive 2012” and from Apr 1 – 3 that’s what we intended to do. Drive the idea that cookbooks are an excellent fundraising tool for all types of non-profits!

We set up our fundraising cookbook display in the Exhibit Hall, gave away 500 cookbooks and spoke to hundreds of people from a variety of non-profits from all over the world. Many who stopped hadn’t thought of cookbooks as fundraisers before and were very impressed with how much you can customize your cookbook to reflect your organization’s needs.

One attendee, from Lakeland College, wanted to include a history of their college as they are celebrating their one hundred year anniversary. He thought cookbooks were such a great idea he even started selling our cookbooks to other attendees standing at our booth! Thanks Kevin Davies!

Rhonda & Gloria at the booth

We sell the concept – Cookbooks are a very profitable venture – we sell each book to the non-profit for approximately $3.00 – $5.00 while your group re-sells it for $10.00 or more. This means you can make 200 – 300% return on your investment!

We look forward to corresponding with all our new AFP clients and friends. We appreciate your enthusiasm and are here to assist you in making your cookbook a huge success!

There are two babies born a day with Spinal Muscular Atrophy and yet it is relatively unknown. That’s one of the reasons Sheila Violette decided to begin a campaign to raise awareness of this incurable and tragic disease. The other is a great deal more personal. Sheila Violette is the grandmother of a young child named Ann Marie (Annie Girl) who sadly passed away from Spinal Muscular Atrophy, or SMA. “She was diagnosed when she was three months old. They told us she had sixty days to live. She lived until she was nine months old.”

When Sheila and her daughter were first told about Annie’s condition they were caught off guard. “We were shocked. She was a completely healthy little baby girl, smiling all the time, but early on we noticed that she couldn’t lift her head. When they told us she had SMA, we hadn’t heard of it before.”

Although relatively unknown, SMA is the number one genetic killer of babies. 1 in 40 people are carriers, unknowingly. 1 in 6,000 babies are born with SMA. “The gene can be detected with a simple blood test,” explains Violette.

Raising awareness of a disease is a tall order, which is why Violette turned to Gateway for a fundraising cookbook. “We looked at several companies but we ended up with Gateway because they had the perfect pink coil and they were able to print dividers with a pink tone to them. We dressed Annie in pink all the time so it was important to include pink in the book’s design in every way we could. Gateway did such a great job of helping us design the entire book. The pink dividers included Annie’s picture on them.”

Annie Girl cookbooks sold out immediately after Violette received the first shipment of one hundred copies, so she ordered more. “We ordered another one hundred, and then they sold out. So we ordered another one hundred, and sure enough they sold out. We took the idea to a Savannah, Georgia dentist’s office and they agreed to sell them. Gateway sent the books directly their office.”

Violette has a lot of energy for the cause, holding fundraisers throughout the community including a Scrapbook Event and a Corvette Retreat. “Over forty women gather in a local church to produce scrapbooks that showcase family memories. The books are sold there with net proceeds to the SMA. We also took books to our annual Corvette Retreat, which is an event that celebrates the fact that we manufacture Corvettes in this part of the country. All the books we brought sold out.”

The Annie Girl fundraising cookbook contains over 300 recipes and a touching description of Annie’s story. All profits from the sale of these books are directed to the Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (www.fsma.org). For more on Annie’s story and to order cookbooks, go to www.4anniegirl.com.

Forty-eight thousand dollars is a lot of money, especially in an economy where fundraising has never been more challenging. That’s why Sarah Boot and the Lundazi team chose Gateway fundraising cookbooks as part of their overall fundraising campaign. Lundazi is a twelve-member team of volunteers planning a mission to Lundazi, Zambia, Africa to build two new science classrooms for disadvantaged youth. The Lundazi team is part of a larger effort by the Edu-Deo Mission, a Canadian Christian mission organization, which serves children in developing countries with quality education rooted in Christian worldview. According to Boot, “Someone in the group mentioned cookbooks when we were thinking about fundraising ideas. My sister had worked with Gateway and she was happy, so we went ahead.”

For the Lundazi team, Gateway’s book was a welcome addition to their overall approach to fundraising, which includes selling bracelets, holding garage sales, bake sales and breakfasts, and soliciting donations from local businesses. “Everything went well when we produced the book. I did a lot of emailing to have my questions answered. They were always there. They even helped me pick out a nice cover and binding coil.”

According to Rhonda Pineau, Gateway’s Fundraising Cookbook Sales and Marketing Manager, the Lundazi approach is common in today’s fundraising market. “Most of our customers use the fundraising cookbook as a tool in their fundraising toolkit. It’s an important part of an overall strategy.”

While fundraising is a necessary part of the process for non-profits to reach their goals, it’s really the cause that drives them. “We’re there to assist actually,” explains Boot. “The community already has people who can build. We create a partnership with them. We encourage them. Get to know them, and we talk with them about the Gospel.”

When Boot spoke of the group’s goal to get to Africa by August 2012, there was really no doubt in her mind regarding how she was going to get there, and why she was doing it.

The “how” came from Edu-Deo, which orchestrates missions in countries around the world including Belize, The Dominican, Nicaragua, Ghana, and Zambia. “I went on a mission with them back in high school to the Dominican Republic. Local churches throughout the GTA know about them. This time around I just went back to them.”

The “why” is also clear for this enthusiastic volunteer: “To build schools in other countries, that’s why we’re going there. But we think in terms of a much greater purpose. We really do it to serve God.”

To donate to the Lundazi team, go to the following link on the Edu-Deo Mission site:

For Christina Handley, raising money for cancer related causes has deep personal meaning. It’s her calling. Christina has been struck with the disease on two occasions, once with her own diagnosis, a rare form of cancer that one in a million women experience, and second, with her life long friend, a beautiful Belgian mare she grew up with, named Reba. “I received my diagnosis a year to the day that Reba passed on,” Christina explained from her farm house in Kewartha Lakes, Ontario, a rural community of approximately 150 people. “But I have to say that despite all these challenges this disease brought into my life, the reason I succeeded is because of attitude and support from people.” Christina Handley is happy to report that her cancer has been in remission for over a year and a half.

Support during the ordeal came from her husband Boyd, a man she affectionately calls her “rock”, from friends in her local community, and from friends far away. “One friend took two months off work to drive me to my appointments while another drove all the way from Virginia to be with me. I also felt such love and support when I took in a cancer fundraising relay during my treatment. It was experiences like this that kept me going. I decided to assemble a team of friends shortly afterward for The Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life. We raised $20,000. Our goal was $2500.”

For Handley, exceeding expectations has become a way of life, her most recent experience with her daily journal providing the seed for a fundraising cookbook from Gateway Publishing. “I started to journal my story and then left the book at the treatment centre to share with people. I came back after the weekend, the whole time wondering if I had done the right thing, to find several stories written in it. We’ve taken these stories and placed them anonymously inside our cookbook. Stories of the personal journeys with cancer have made our cookbook that much more special.”

Handley’s cookbook, entitled “Fightin’ Fillies”, includes stories from everyday people undergoing cancer treatments. There are even a few from clinic volunteers, each a nice complement to the book’s wide range of recipes (courtesy of friends and family). Handley chose Gateway to print her cookbook after seeing another Gateway customer, Breasts of Friends on CBC’s Dragon’s Den. “They liked Gateway so I figured I would, and working with them was great. They took me through each step of the process, which ran very smoothly. The books just arrived and they look beautiful.”

Given the book’s beautiful cover and its unique personal stories of people touched by cancer, she’ll have absolutely no problem doing exactly that, and given Gateway’s profitable fundraising cookbook formula, there’ll be plenty available for a good cause.

With Cintas already ranked by NEWSWEEK Magazine among the Top 500 Greenest Companies in America, the Kelowna branch has shown a grassroots initiative of its own by publishing a fundraiser cookbook with proceeds going to Free The Children.

Cintas teamed up with Free The Children in early 2011 as part of the Let Canada Be Canada initiative. Cintas is a corporation that originates out of the United States which has often tied them to American charities like the Susan G Komen Foundation. While they were happy to support such great charities, Canadian partners wanted to support a Canadian Charity which is how the partnership with FTC began. Why Free The Children? The program targets youth involvement through education and awareness but this was something that could easily be translated to all partners across the country. Funds raised are invested wisely – for every $1 raised .91 cents goes directly into the program. Much like what Cintas believes – money is spent wisely and conscious of the bottom line.

FTC has simple and humble beginnings originating in 1995 in Thornhill, ON by founder Craig Kielburger. Craig was only 12 years old. Since they launched everything in April, Cintas has built a water and sanitization facility and a school in their adopted village in Kenya.

To celebrate the one hundred year anniversary of Girl Scouts USA, Jodi Hautala-Carlson produced a fundraising cookbook with Gateway Publishing. Jodi is the driving force behind Troop #80671, a Girl Guide troop operating in Conneaut, Ohio for the past 21 years. Funds raised through the sale of the Troop’s cookbook will be directed to various activities including Girl Guide awards, the 100th Year Celebration for Girl Guides U.S.A., and a Cinderella Ball to be held in 2012.
The book includes 325 recipes – each important to girl guides – which includes “Thinking Day Recipes”, “Girl Scout Cookie Recipes”, and “Campfire Recipes”. The book also features practical information for girl guides including the “Girl Scout Law, Promise, Slogan, and Motto”, and a section at the back that allows people to add their own recipes.
Besides being the Leader who spearheaded the fundraiser, Jodi is also a graphic designer. It was her design background that drew her to Gateway. “We looked at a bunch of different sites but Gatebook.com was the only one that let us design our own. I designed the Inserts – the whole thing.”
The #80671 Troop is selling its cookbooks through various channels. “We told all the other troops across the country, our friends and relatives. We’ve placed it on Facebook and someone even wrote a blog for us, but the main reason is to raise funds for our Cinderella Ball. We’re doing it up right with gowns, dinner, a DJ, a backdrop and a ceremonial bee. There’s still plenty of time until the ball which leaves us with lots of time to sell more cookbooks.”
To buy a Troop #80671 Girl Guide Cookbook email Jodi at jodi.hautala@gmail.com
For more background on the troop and its cookbook project, visit the following blog post on the Albany Kid:http://albanykid.com/2011/11/29/girl-scout-recipes-cookbook-marks-the-100th-year-anniversary-of-girl-scouts/